In their hometown of Pittsburgh and in pockets elsewhere, the Clarks have built a reputation for playing basic, no-bullshit, good old American rock ‘n’ roll, the kind that doesn’t sound dated even years after it’s created. Several Clarks songs have reached anthem status among the band’s fans, and they’re all represented on Live: “Penny On [...]

The solo debut of D. Braxton Harris from Alabama band the Quinsonics is an intentionally quiet record, far removed from the urgent pacings that ran throughout Cowboy Angel, his band’s last record. Harris presents his latest songs in a sparse, slow texture informed by influences ranging from Richard Buckner to Freakwater.
While Deep Dark Black is [...]

First thing you notice about this record is that 23-year-old Louisiana native Max Rollo, who is Saltgrass, is a confirmed Uncle Tupelo worshipper. These 11 originals are infused with the sort of rustic weariness that characterized Tupelo’s sound. Which is to say this isn’t the most original album in the world.
Second thing you notice: Who [...]

Hillbilly Idol may be a side-project for its members — that’s what the promo material says — but you wouldn’t know it from the music. With a good dose of retro sounds for a base — the album’s opener, Paul Kovac’s “It All Depends On You”, captures a swinging strain of ’50s country down to [...]

A friend once told me that she liked Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers because Petty had never written a rock opera. She was expressing her approval of a band’s artistic decision to stick to what they do best. On their latest album, Chicago’s Riptones don’t stray far from the musical recipe they’ve followed in the [...]

You know all those sad country records you put on right before you hop in bed and drift off to sleep, just you and lonesome lying in a double bed? Well, this isn’t one of them. 29 Nights, the debut album from Strasburg, Virginia honky-tonker Danni Leigh, cranks out a heaping helping of hardcore hillbilly [...]

Eddie Hinton was a lesser-known player in the Southern soul scene of the late ’60s who made the most of his impact in the Muscle Shoals area. He wrote, played on, and produced some of the best songs from that period. After soul’s tenuous musical union between black and white broke down and Eddie could [...]

It’s easy to get tangled up in this album’s tale of two families without ever getting to the music. A primer: Tangletown leader Seth Zimmerman is the nephew of Bob Dylan and cousin to Jakob. The album is the first released on ex-Prince & the Revolution drummer Bobby Z’s Zinc Records; the production credits include [...]

On their debut disc, Ware River Club moves effortlessly from rockin’, stompin’ bar-band fare to cry-in-your-beer country, with solid songwriting always a part of the mix.
Singer-songwriters Matt Herbert and Matt Cullen have assembled a crackerjack band of veteran musicians from the thriving New England alt-country scene. Drummer Keith Levreault (ex-Blood Oranges) and bassist Ray Mason [...]

Just as John P. Strohm releases a record he seems to have grown bored with the style of music on it. As a member of the Blake Babies, Lemonheads, Antenna, Velo-Deluxe and Hello Strangers, he has covered pre-grunge pop, punk-pop, psychedelic-shoegazer pop, and country-pop, but he abandoned each just as quickly as he embraced it.
On [...]